


Flicker Out

by UpsideAround



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Emotional crisis, Gen, Manipulation, Smartphone Hour (Rich Set a Fire), body control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 14:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11277600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpsideAround/pseuds/UpsideAround
Summary: Jenna was a gossip, but a reliable one. She often got thewhatstraight, but was wrong about thewhy.Jenna spread the news that Rich went crazy and burned the house down, dispite not drinking a single drop of alcohol.Well, Jenna didn't always get the whole story, did she?





	Flicker Out

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Aftermath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11217174) by [klaviergavout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klaviergavout/pseuds/klaviergavout). 



> Hey! Wow, I'm so proud of this fic. This has been the hardest bmc fic to write so far, and I must say I'm pleased with how it turned out. 
> 
> That being said, I've used an unconventional narritive technique (somewhat non-chronological storytelling) in order to better highlight emotional suspense. Bear with me! I had my beta read this without telling her that the story may be confusing, and she got everything figured out. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Fire had always fascinated Rich. He stared at the flame flickering from his lighter and let it consume his vision.

Fire was beauty—creating and melting the world into shape. It lit up the room and gently warmed Rich’s face.

He brought the lighter closer and closer to his face, watching the light fill up his vision. He jerked back suddenly when the flame singed his skin.

 _You need to get back out there_ , came the voice of the SQUIP. _People already think you’re crazy from that display earlier, we need to do damage control._

For the first time, Rich refused an order. He didn’t respond; didn’t even acknowledge that the SQUIP had spoke.

He felt tendrils of the SQUIP’s influence wrap around his mind and begin to grip him tightly. His arm shook as he fought to maintain control over his own body.

_It’s futile to try and resist. I will always win._

The flickering light of the flame disappeared.

\---

Drinking normally wasn’t a problem for Rich. His SQUIP had taught him how to drink without getting drunk. It was all about appearances. Drinking visibly on occasion, then finding ways to sneak into the kitchen or restroom to empty his drink.

Rich hadn’t been without his SQUIP for a long time since they had worked on that trick together. There was no reason for it to shut off.

Tonight was no exception.

The Halloween party was in full swing, and Rich was bouncing from room to room, making casual conversation and saying meaningless things until he was ready to go “refill” his drink.

He excused himself from a game of spin-the-bottle, laughing and saying he needed to get a refill.

In the kitchen now, he glanced around before filling his Solo Cup up with water.

_Add a bit of alcohol, so it doesn’t look completely clear. It’ll smell like alcohol, too._

“Jesus Christ, you act like I’ve never done this before.”

His SQUIP materialized, sitting on the counter in front of Rich. “It doesn’t hurt to be too careful.”

Rich scoffed. “You don’t trust me. Never have.”

“If I trusted you to act correctly, you wouldn’t have needed me in the first place.”

Rich winced internally. It always hurt a little whenever his SQUIP reminded him that he really couldn’t live on his own.

“Rich?”

Rich jumped and his drink spilled on his hand as he spun around. “Jesus Christ!”

“Sorry, I was just wondering if you were okay, man,” Dustin said, eying Rich’s Solo Cup. “You seem a bit off.”

_Don’t admit anything._

Rich shook his head. “I’m fine. Or I will be, as soon as I down this next drink!” Rich forced a laugh that he hoped sounded genuine and made a big show of drinking the rest of his watered-down alcohol.

Dustin gave him a puzzled look before shaking his head and walking out of the kitchen.

“He knows,” said the SQUIP, suddenly standing right next to Rich. “We need to fix this. He could ruin your reputation; imagine what people will think of you if they knew you didn’t drink.”

Rich swallowed. “What did you have in mind?”

“Go get the stash of SQUIPs I told you to bring. Trust me.”

Rich turned and left the kitchen to find his backpack.

\---

Rich gasped as his hand trembled and dropped the lighter against his will. “No.”

A pause.

_No?_

“No,” Rich said, stronger this time. “I won’t be your puppet anymore.”

_You wouldn’t be anything without me. You will be nothing without me. You’ll be an outcast._

“I don’t care,” Rich said. “I want—” he gasped and choked on his words, suddenly unable to breathe. His diaphragm spasmed, and Rich panicked as he realized he couldn’t inhale.

 _Go ahead_ , the SQUIP said smugly, _tell me what you want. It’s hard to speak without the ability to draw in breath, isn’t it?_

Rich clawed at the back of his neck. _What are you gonna do, kill me? You kill me, you kill you!_

 _I’m a supercomputer. I can transmit my coding into any other nearby SQUIP, so it’s a damn good thing you invited Jeremy to this party_.

Rich fell to his knees, unable to even gasp for air. _I don’t want to die_.

 _Then listen to me. Do as I say_.

Rich grasped at the carpet as his lungs betrayed him.

\---

“Now what?” Rich said, holding up the Ziplock baggie with a dozen or so SQUIP pills inside.

His SQUIP looked at the pills for a moment, appearing to ponder its choices. “Do you have the Mountian Dew?”

“Yeah,” Rich said. “Not sure why you picked tonight to try and sell more of these things.”

The SQUIP shook its head. “We’re not selling. We’re giving.”

Rich dropped the bag. “What?”

The SQUIP pulled Rich’s arm down to pick up the baggie. “Imagine it. If you help other people get what they want, it’ll do wonders for your popularity.”

Rich’s hand shook. He didn’t like it when the SQUIP took over his body. “Are you sure?”

“It made Jeremy like you, and he detested you before you gave him the idea to get a SQUIP. Imagine what this could do for people that already like you. They’d love you. You wouldn’t be lost as Jake’s sidekick anymore.”

Rich swallowed. “I…”

The SQUIP clenched Rich’s fist around the baggie. “Oh, come on! Look at these people. None of them know what they’re doing with their lives. They’re all sad, pathetic, and pitiful. Each in their own way. You can give them a way out. You can be their hero.”

Rich stared out at the people in the other room. Jenna was dancing wildly, a huge grin plastered on her face. Dustin appeared to be content nodding his head to the music. Rich’s peers seemed to be happy.

There was something wrong with this scene.

“Imagine a world with no miscommunication,” the SQUIP said, suddenly standing behind Rich. “Imagine a world where people can have full control over their emotions. Flip a switch and stop the tears from falling. We can give everyone that.”

Rich couldn’t keep his eyes off of Jenna. She was singing at the top of her lungs, using a pen as a microphone. She was so alive; her eyes shone brightly with her smile.

Why couldn’t he look away? What was so enticing about a wild group of teenagers letting loose? They were all drunk and fumbling through their lives, anyway.

He felt something stir in his chest, watching Jenna hop up onto the couch in her dramatic fashion.

Rich had the advantage. He had the SQUIP. So what was wrong?

In watching Jenna’s happiness spill out of her, Rich realized he hadn’t felt really, truly happy in a long time. It was a realization that struck him in the gut.

“Rich…” the SQUIP said dangerously.

Decision made, Rich snatched a bottle of Jack Daniels off of the table and began chugging it.

 _Stop_. The SQUIP’s powerful voice paralyzed Rich, in the very literal sense. Rich couldn’t down any more of the whisky. His mouth burned. The rest of the bottle poured out over Rich’s face and onto the floor.

Rich knew the damage had been done. All he had to do was wait until the alcohol took effect. _Get out of my head._

\---

The hold on Rich’s lungs suddenly let go. He gasped immediately, inhaling as much air as he could. He laid there for a moment, heaving on the floor of the bedroom.

“Okay,” he said weakly. “I’ll do it. Just—just give me a moment.”

What followed was the hardest two minutes of Rich’s life. He knew now, what needed to be done. The SQUIP was too powerful, it was only a matter of time before Rich was beyond the point of no return.

Maybe he was already there.

Rich glanced around the room casually. His eyes scanned the top of the dresser. A book, a pair of scissors, some fingernail clippers. A bottle of nail polish remover. Rich’s heart thumped in his chest. He stood up, clutching the lighter in his right hand.

It was like that elephant game—when your friend challenges you to not think about an elephant. The only difference was now Rich was paralyzed by fear. He didn’t want to die controlled by a supercomputer he swallowed to make himself popular.

God, imagine that on a headstone.

In one quick motion, Rich grabbed the bottle of nail polish remover he had noticed earlier. He popped off the lid and began pouring it onto the carpet.

_Rich, what are you—_

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Pour and light, don’t think—

“Stop!” The SQUIP had materialized, stopping Rich’s arm in midair. The flame from the lighter flickered between them.

\---

Rich was panicking, and also drunk for the first time in at least a year. This did not make for a good combination as he stumbled from person to person, almost praying somebody had a stash of Mountain Dew Red.

“Got any Mountain Dew Red?”

Dustin gave him a blank look.

“It looks like Mountain Dew, but red?”

Dustin shook his head.

Rich’s hands shook. He needed to shut down his SQUIP forever, or it would just come back with a vengeance. The awful feeling in his gut spread throughout his whole body.

“Seriously?” Rich spun around, scratching at the back of his neck in one harsh motion. “Where the fuck can I get some Mountain Dew Red!”

A small, uncomfortable itch had started up in the back of his head. Rich ignored it, but his gut told him the SQUIP was slowly restarting.

Rich glanced around the room and his eyes landed on Jeremy. Jeremy. Jeremy had a SQUIP too. Maybe he had already figured everything out, and had a bit of Mountain Dew Red on him.

It was a long shot, but Rich flung himself onto the floor in front of Jeremy anyway. He added some sound effects for a bit of flare.

Jeremy stared at Rich.

“Got any Mountain Dew Red?”

Jeremy scoffed. “Okay, this whole no-drinking-while-squipping thing? Would it have killed you to give me a warning?”

Rich snapped up as the itch in the back of his head became a full-on stabbing sensation. He blinked and his SQUIP materialized on the couch next to Jeremy.

“Rich…?” Jeremy stared directly at Rich.

Rich needed to tell Jeremy. He needed to let them know what the SQUIPs were really doing.

“Warning—” Rich’s words stuck in his throat. “Warning—”

Jeremy furrowed his eyebrows.

Rich shook himself. “Warning—” The words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t make his lips move, he was frozen. He stared at Jeremy, desperately pleading at him with his eyes to understand, but Jeremy returned a blank look.

 _Time to go_. Rich’s SQUIP took full control of Rich’s body and walked him out of the room.

The SQUIP relinquished control as soon as Rich turned the corner into the hallway. The second Rich had his body back, he ran down the hall and shut himself in a bedroom. He tried to lock the door, but his hand were shaking too hard.

“Don’t fucking do that!” Rich shouted into the air.

 _It was necessary_ , the SQUIP said.

Rich pressed his hands on the dresser in front of him. He stared at himself in the mirror, looking into the glassed-over eyes he didn’t recognize.

His hand brushed up against a lighter.

\---

Rich stared directly at his SQUIP as he slowly managed to unwrap his fingers. His grip on the lighter loosened. The lighter dropped from his hand. 

The small blue flame fell to the floor. It roared and became a monstrous yellow at Rich’s feet. The nail polish remover had lit immediately, and the fire was now cackling as it ran over the carpet.

“What have you done?” the SQUIP screamed as the room was engulfed in flames. Rich found his body paralyzed. He was stuck in place.

The SQUIP disappeared, and Rich was no longer in control of his own body. The SQUIP made him step back and open the door to the hallway. The fire roared at the rush of oxygen. The heat was searing the back of Rich’s neck.

The smoke alarm began to sound and the SQUIP ran him into another room. The flames were spreading, and the smoke was inescapable. Rich could feel the hot soot building up in his lungs, and the SQUIP coughed for him.

Back into the hallway. Rich collapsed as his body began to give out. The SQUIP tried to run him down the hallway, but Rich’s vision was fading.

The flames began crawling into the hallway as Rich lay on the ground. The SQUIP still fought to move Rich’s body, but Rich was barely inching along the floor.

 _I win_ , Rich thought as he watched the flames flicker and dance. _Everything will be gone. This whole place will be turned to ash._

The SQUIP was silent.

Rich liked the house better this way—engulfed in flames. Fire was beauty, and it was preferable to the ugly reality Rich had always faced here.

Every single party Rich had ever been to was being burned down at once. Every hookup he’d ever had in the name of popularity was being torn down and replaced by red-hot flame.

God, he hated this house.

Rich’s body went limp and his vision went black. He was going to die, he was sure of that, but he was going to die as himself.

 

* * *

 

Pain. That was the first thing Rich noticed. His legs felt as if they had been snapped in half. There was a colony of fire ants chewing through his left arm. His right arm was a wrung-out washcloth.

Then there was his head. The rest of his body faded into the background in comparison to his head. His head felt like it had been split open, scooped out, then flung at the wall.

A screeching noise made the pain in his head pulse.

Beep. Beep.

Rich let himself fade into blissful nothingness.

\---

When Rich woke up for the second time, he managed to stay awake for a little longer. The screeching noise had faded into the soft tones of a heart monitor. His head still ached, but it was more manageable now.

Now, the pain in the rest of his body was starting to compete. He almost wished for the pain in his head to return.

He could hear voices, now. The words sounded garbled in Rich’s ears, and he couldn’t concentrate long enough to get more than a few phrases. There was something about _thrown out the window_ and something that sounded like _other students injured._

Oh god, what had he done?

\---

Rich opened his eyes to a brightly lit hospital room. He gasped and opened his mouth to breathe.

“Richard?”

An unfamiliar face swam Rich’s vision.

“Wha…” Rich swallowed, “What happened?”

“You were in a fire,” the face said.

Rich would’ve scoffed at that if he could. He knew that part.

“You almost didn’t make it, but one of your fellow students found you in the hallway and threw you out of the window.”

Rich blinked, trying to get the face in front of him to focus into a person.

“Speaking of your fellow students, you might be getting a roommate soon. Someone from your school. There was an incident of sorts, and several of the students overdosed on ecstasy during the school play. They’re coming here.”

Rich had no idea what that meant, but he was too tired to ask for clarification.

\---

Rich wasn’t sure why he survived the fire. He wasn’t planning on living; he wanted a way out of the SQUIP’s influence.

He woke up again, and this time he finally felt like he could be coherent. His bed was propping him up into a sitting position, and the first thing he noticed was Jeremy lying in a second hospital bed.

The second thing he noticed was Michael, sitting on the chair in the corner, flicking through his phone.

“Michael?” Rich asked.

Michael looked up. “I wasn’t expecting you to be the first one to wake up. The doctors were saying that you’d been out for a few weeks.”

“A few weeks?” Rich stared up at the ceiling. “What happened?”

Rich heard Michael shift in his seat. “Do you mean about the fire or about the play?”

Rich tried to shrug, but gasped in pain. “Both, I guess,” he said, looking back at Michael.

Michael hummed. “Okay. Well, the party. You burned the house down, everyone freaked out but nobody died. Jake ended up with a pair of broken legs—”

Rich winced at that. He hadn’t wanted anyone to get hurt, but then again, he set the house on fire. What was he expecting?

“—and you ended up like this. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Rich stared at Michael. “What do you mean?”

Michael stared right back. “I heard the alarms, and when I was leaving, I almost tripped on you. So, I got you outta my way.”

“By throwing me out the window,” Rich finished.

“Yeah,” Michael said, twisting his phone between his hands.

A beat.

“You should have left me there,” Rich said, bitterness seeping through the edge of his voice. “I never wanted to get out of there. I don’t deserve to have survived that.”

Michael didn’t respond to that. “So you did set the fire?”

Rich sighed. “Yeah, I guess I did.” Rich cringed at that. Of course he set the fire, were there any other arguments? “I couldn’t think my own thoughts,” Rich continued, “and I couldn’t control my own body.” He took a shuddering breath. “I just got an urge to destroy everything.”

God, Rich couldn’t even stand the sound of his own voice. He had forgotten about the lisp he had freshman year.

Michael nodded. “Well, don’t feel too bad about it. The SQUIPs are gone. They all went _bzzzt_ during the play.”

A weight that Rich hadn’t even noticed was lifted off of him. “The SQUIPs are gone?”

Michael nodded. “No more.”

Rich exhaled and relaxed back into the bed. “No more,” he repeated.

No more. Everything was over.

If Rich was alone, he probably would have collapsed into tears of relief. After years of repressed emotions and manipulation, the notion that everything was finally over was too much to deal with.

However, Rich wasn’t alone. So instead, he straightened his shoulders and said “Cool,” ignoring the way his voice cracked.

Everything was finally over.

**Author's Note:**

> I was somewhat inspired by two other fics I've read (I thought about them a few times while writing this). One is linked, but I could not find the other. If you read this and thought "huh. That idea sure sounds familiar" and you have a link to the fic, let me know! I would love to give credit for my inspiration.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought of this. Good things, bad things, things I can improve on, etc. I love all feedback!
> 
> Hit me up on [tumblr](http://upsidearound.tumblr.com) to give me any other comments! I will also take prompts


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